Former Indian Test opener Aakash Chopra slammed India’s bowling after the hosts suffered a 24-run loss against the West Indies in the fourth T20I at Hyderabad on Wednesday. Chopra highlighted that Indian bowlers used the slower balls regularly but could not execute their lengths.
India concede an above-par score of 247 runs on the board after Iyer elected to bowl first on a relaid Hyderabad pitch.
India was restricted to 223-9 in the run-chase as the Windies leveled the series 2-2. The visitors scored 70 runs in the last five overs as they scored at a run rate of 14.
All the Indian bowlers, barring Prince Yadav, conceded their runs at an economy rate of more than 11.
“The bowling was ordinary. It seemed like the pitch was flat when the Indian team was bowling. It seemed like something started happening on the pitch when India came to bat because the West Indies bowled a lot of into-the-pitch slower ones, which we didn’t do,” Chopra said on his YouTube Channel.
“We bowled only around nine slower ones, which was not right. We were also serving full tosses. Our bowling was actually quite ordinary, and the West Indies made the most of it, thrashed us a lot, and reached close to 250,” he added.
Chopra pointed out that Indian opener Sanju Samson likes batting in Hyderabad after he scored 56 runs off just 23 balls.
“If nearly 250 are scored, they aren’t chased easily, although the West Indies did that job in Ranchi, but there was a lot of dew there. Sanju started destroying at the start here. Sanju likes this ground a lot. He had once hit five sixes in a Rishad Hossain over. He had scored a hundred then,” he said.
The former Delhi cricketer highlighted that Keemo Paul’s five-wicket haul tilted the game in West Indies’ favor.
“Here also, when he scored a fifty, he was hitting so much that Abhishek Sharma was standing at the other end and asking Sanju to let him bat. Sanju batted incredibly well. He got out, and Ishan Kishan got out soon after that. Even after that, whether it was Tilak Varma or Nitish Kumar Reddy, or Abhishek Sharma’s short knock, it seemed like we might come back into the game, but Keemo Paul’s five wickets changed the game,” Chopra observed.
The fifth and final match of the series between India and the West Indies will be played at M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru, on Saturday.
